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Friday, March 27, 2015

Surprised myself when my knees got a bit wobbly and I clutched my phone/camera in a vise grip sure I'd drop it 200 feet to the swirling water below. This is Deception Pass Bridge connecting Whidbey and Fidalgo islands in Washington. The two-lane motor bridge is more than a quarter mile in length with a three-foot pedestrian walkway. We walked over and back, having already hiked trails along the forested cliffs.

At one spectacular moment, two bald eagles soared right over our heads mid-way across the bridge. What a thrill! The nearby Upper Skagit River Valley has one of the largest populations of wintering bald eagles in the continental U.S.

Look closely and see the steel arch of the bridge through the trees. The trails, some quite narrow and rocky, are breathtakingly close to sheer drop-offs but the jade color of the water is equally breathtaking. The area was carved by glaciers and is a deep channel connecting the Strait of Juan de Fuca with the Saratoga Passage.

Before the bridge was built in 1934 by Civilian Conservation Corps and local farmers, travelers would hit a metal saw with a mallet to call a ferry operated by the first woman ferry captain in Washington, Bertie Olson.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

For some reason when I saw this blue opening in the sky I thought it looked like a path, like I might step into the sky, wander into the Other.

It felt more magical than a tiny fairy door because the potential was enormous, as big as the universe.

Or maybe my subconscious was remembering how I felt long time back reading the final lines of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass: "So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky."

I've always thought that is one of the most brilliant ends to a novel ever.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Surprise, surprise. While hiking in a wooded park by Puget Sound, we came across a happy face drawn on this mossy tree stump. The beautiful scenery and fresh air already had me smiling, but this made me smile even wider.

Despite all the bad news in the world, life on this incredible planet can be mighty fine.

Another day, walking along a huge lake I wrote a haiku (the birds were too speedy for a photograph)

warm March on the lake,
'whoosh' of coots make a rooster
tail of white water

Why I love fantasy

William Alexander, quoted Ursula Le Guin in accepting the National Book Award for his fantasy novel, Goblin Secrets: "The literature of the imagination is important because it gives us a world large enough to contain alternatives, and it gives us hope."

Why I'm Here

I love stories--writing them, reading them, talking about them. So I'm here to do that and meet people who like the same thing. My official name is Patricia J. O'Brien. On this blog I'm Tricia. I used to be a features writer for a daily newspaper (aka Pat), so I know how to do an interview and where to stick a semicolon.